Agent’s Start Time Changes Daily

I am still in utter disbelief as I’m writing this piece. A close friend of mine got transferred to a new line of business, in short to another account. When she hit the production floor, that is when they graduated from training, they were surprised to know that their start time change from time to time. I am familiar with this setup as on some companies or accounts, they have schedules changes every quarter, some monthly, and some even weekly. Never I’ve heard of a daily variation on the start time. Though to be fair, they follow a certain range, like say for example their start time would be in this range 9PM to 11PM. On some days my friend start at 9PM, next day she starts at 11PM, then back to 9:30PM. I mean that’s just absurd to me. How is this happening? What’s the management doing?

Let me explain the reason why I’m freaking out. For us in the Call Center Industry. It’s challenging enough that you have to work in the night shift that you just can’t add more factors to that. One, you have to pace yourself, you have to maintain a regular sleeping pattern so you still get your sleeping hours right. This is very crucial to the health and mood of the agents, especially the oldies. Two, we know our job is one of our top priorities, but we also have our own lives to live. We have a family to take care of, or a gathering to attend to. Sometimes you have to squeeze time for school or your other activities and endeavors. How are you going to make it work with a varying start time, and it happens DAILY. Have they ever heard of the word HEAVY TRAFFIC? The time agents have to wake up and factor the travel time plus the traffic and all that? When your start time changes almost everyday how inconvenient is that?

Well I just hope the management realize the madness they have allowed. I mean from the management perspective, I get it, maybe the clients asked for it or pushed for it. They say we don’t have the choice, the clients might take volume elsewhere and we’re left with no jobs. I just want them to THINK for a second, what this setup does to their agents. They lack sleep. They have a hard time balancing work and life. As a result they are prone to get sick, or stressed. Then they resign and transfer to other companies. With the rate it’s going attrition is going to be high, their losing money and they will spend more just to replace those agents. Clients will also suffer, with the competition nowadays, it’s hard to get top tier new hires, and when we have those new agents, majority of those agents will be nowhere near the skill level of those agent that left even when they become tenured agents.